Autograph letter signed (‘Gustav’) to [Alma Schindler: ‘Liebste!’], n.p. [Vienna], n.d. [9 December 1901]

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Autograph letter signed (‘Gustav’) to [Alma Schindler: ‘Liebste!’], n.p. [Vienna], n.d. [9 December 1901]
In German. Four pages, 100 x 126mm, on two notecards embossed ‘Der Director des K.K. Hof-Operntheaters’ (cancelled in pencil), the date added in pencil in another hand. Provenance: Sotheby’s New York, 22 May 1985, lot 338.

‘From now on, wherever you are is my abiding city’: a love letter from his whirlwind courtship with Alma, as Mahler leaves for Berlin immediately after their secret engagement. Mahler is about to leave and begs for a few lines sent to the Palast Hotel: ‘For a few moments they would make me feel at home in that unfamiliar place […] even the faintest reminder of your dear presence helps me forget for a while the pain of separation’. He asks for her opinion of The Magic Flute: ‘I can imagine that such a work will not yet have become clear to you, for it is all too much a piece of yourself. For a long time I had similar experiences with those works which you describe as "naïve". But I value and revere everything you can tell me about yourself, even the merest trifle’, entreating her to tell him everything of her life, but to write clearly. On Wednesday, Alma will meet Mahler’s sister – here, he breaks off to read a recently-arrived letter from his beloved, continuing with the joyful confession that his sister ‘is completely in the picture and has already taken you into her heart. Yesterday we talked until far into the night about you and our future […] She understands everything and will be a true friend’. He is very unhappy that he must go away again ‘and yet it’s almost like a call from the Master, from the Teacher (I put it like that to avoid saying "God", because we haven’t yet touched on that topic)’. He can write no more: ‘I hear nothing but this one voice, stronger than all else. May it never fall silent – in my heart. A voice that knows but one word and one note: I love you, my Alma!’.

Alma’s diary entry for 9 December tells of a similar infatuation: ‘I simply can’t work – I pace around the room, go over to his picture, re-read his last letter – I love him! […] I believe I shall become a better person, he purifies me’. Mahler and Alma Schindler began their affair in November 1909, while Alma was still in a relationship with her composition tutor, Alexander Zemlinsky. By 8 December, just one day before the present letter was written, they were secretly engaged; however, it was not until 12 December that she wrote to Zemlinsky to inform him of her engagement. The engagement was formally announced on 23 December and the two were married on 9 March 1902.

Published: La Grange et al (eds.), Letters to his Wife (2004), no 7.